Drewes and Raabe struggled "the leadership in music," and this made
Joseph Goebbels happy as he could use their words as a threat to one or the other. Drewes worked in
Deutsches Nationaltheater und Staatskapelle Weimar as a
répétiteur and conductor. In 1930, he went to Landestheater in
Altenburg (
Theater & Philharmonie Thüringen) as a conductor. He started there a local chapter for KfdK (
Kampfbund für deutsche Kultur) and the same year he went to
NSDAP and wrote articles in
NS-Zeitung and
Völkischer Beobachter. Deutscher Musiker-Kalender tells in 1943 he was Generalintendant and Generalmusikdirektor. Denazified Drewes worked after the war in Nürnberg Conservatory. Later, a story emerged that Drewes used pseudonyms when he was working in the propaganda ministry. He conducted only with the radio orchestras. It was he who hired and fired the conductors. He may have used the name Hermann Desser when he conducted
Felix Draeseke's
Symphonia Tragica with the
Berlin Symphony Orchestra, published in 1955 by
Urania Records.
Alan Krueck says there is no such conductor as Hermann Desser, and the music was typical for the Third Reich. On the other hand, the quality of the recording was consistent with what was achievable at the time. Later Christoph Schlüren also identifies Drewes. Drewes appreciated
Jean Sibelius who was the president of the German Sibelius Society (Deutsche Sibelius Gesellschaft). He wrote a preface to Ernst Tanzberger's dissertation
Die symphonischen Dichtungen, von Jean Sibelius, eine inhalts- und formanalytische Studie (K. Triltsch, 1943). Tommi Mäkelä writes in his Sibelius biography that it was explicitly meant to be a greeting 'to our Finnish friends and comrades-in-arm.' Drewes himself writes that the symphonic sagas of Sibelius evidence that "while the Finnish Volk could be counted racially among the Finno-Ugric tribe," over centuries it had "turned happily toward the German world". Drewes was a friend of
Richard Strauss, who asked him to extend his protection to Strauss' librettist
Joseph Gregor. Strauss again asked for protection in 1939 from his non-Aryan daughter-in-law and grandchildren. The Swedish composer
Kurt Atterberg was worried about the German conductor
Helmuth Thierfelder whether he could conduct Attenberg's compositions, and about his possibility of visiting Sweden. The concertmaster of Philharmonischen Orchester
Landestheater Coburg Ralph Braun says the significance of Drewes has not been known until today. == References ==